


The Great Fish Incident

by Whuffie



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 00:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10450782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whuffie/pseuds/Whuffie
Summary: Before her Harrowing Audrie had a mischievously sadistic instructor. Add one enormous rotten fish to an innocent templar and stir with Walking Bomb. This takes place before the events of Dragon Age: Origins.





	

No one knew exactly what happened during a Harrowing, and Audrie tried not to keep her mind on her lessons. It would happen when Irving and Greagoir decided. She had no control over it so making herself into a bundle of panic wouldn’t serve her best interests. Jowan had been scarce for several days and acting odd. It occurred to her that they might have be in the process of testing him. He’d been acting strangely, but their studies began steadily once they matured into their late teens. It was hard to find time for the childish fun when spells were becoming more complex and dangerous. Control over them grew more mentally grueling each passing week. Her instructors pushed them harder, preparing them for the world, such as it was in the Tower. They would become fully fledged mages soon and decide which of their limited options they’d pursue.

Employment opportunities weren’t exactly flooding her desk. She could do basic creation healing but wouldn’t ever be released to the outside world to work with a noble’s estate. With a level of patience as deep as a phylactery cork no one would ask her to take up an instructor mantle. Potions weren’t her strongest point, templars preferred to tackle ledgers for incoming supplies, there were adequate cooks and unless she invented a self scrubbing brush spell, the menial cleaning tasks felt like a waste of talent. Pulling her share with laundry and removing potion components from the floors were tasks the mages shared equally. Occasionally a templar found themselves with a rag in hand if Greagoir inflicted a minor punishment. It wasn’t something she relished the thought of doing all day every day until she was too creaky in the back to bend over. Irving allowed her abilities to take their own course but many of them were stacking into the type of mage which made the Chantry nervous. The things she was best at were aggressive and dangerous. Templars, even those like Greagoir, weren’t fond of mages making themselves battle ready. It would be too easy for them to stage a revolt, and they outnumbered Greagoir’s people by at least three to one. The facts they varied greatly in age from children to elders, magical talent didn’t always equate into being good at the craft and most of the population staying passive were what kept the peace. Some mages also liked to join Fraternities and discuss things endlessly. Audrie always felt that was another tactic to stave off boredom rather than anything productive.

Without a plan for the future, she wasn’t in a rush to be Harrowed. All she knew for certain is she eventually wanted out of the Tower. Too many mages lived their entire lives and died of old age within the stone walls. She didn’t remember much of the outside world because she’d been so young when her power manifested. It was enough that she hoped to see it again, perhaps with a templar escort, for a few years. The Circle was home, but it the routine was wearing on her young soul. On average, she was not unhappy. She had friends to share mutual grievances and joys with. They made the days days when the walls felt like they were closing in to be more bearable. Her education was better than she would have been given outside and she had everything she had plenty of good food on her plate every day. A warm, safe, comfortable bed waited for her every night. The only thing she wasn’t allowed to have which she desperately wanted was a dog. They made too many of the other mages nervous, but she suspected more to it than that. Dogs needed exercise and trees to use for toilets. The templars could always take them out, but Greagoir probably didn’t want to add that to everything else they had to do every day. Cullen wouldn’t have minded. She was sure of that. He liked dogs nearly as much as she did.

She might be a little warmer toward him than was acceptable and a titter threatened to bubble out of her when she went into the laboratory. He stood at attention near one of the tables, and she did _not_ giggle like a silly child. Mages and templars alike lived nearly atop one another, so it was impossible not to know almost everyone at least by sight. Cullen wasn’t as prone to wear the dehumanizing helmet which many of them chose, and he stood subtly straighter when she came into the room, armor rattling heavily against itself. She greeted him with a smile and nodded.

There were a few templars who the mages tried to deliberately avoid because they detested their charges. Most of them, however, seemed to hulk around and watch every dull detail of tower life. Audrie thought it must be one of the most boring jobs on the face of Thedas to lurk around in corridors or constantly patrol the same places they must have seen thousands of times. The whole time the templars were stuffed inside a giant metal bucket. That armor had to be heavy, although Cullen certainly did look good in it….

Grinning guiltily, she hid the inappropriate thought by immersing herself in her next training exercise.

An elven man, his chestnut hair braided with copious amounts of grey, bade her come up to the table with a gesture. “Good morning,” he greeted her in a thready voice which was accustomed to smartly keeping unruly apprentices in line. “Do back up, Ser, we need space for this,” he told Cullen with weary exasperation, waving him back with a slender hand.

Frowning, the young templar took half a step backward, and the elven man credited him with a sour look. _Well, if the newer knights wouldn’t listen, they would have to learn by experience, just like young mages._ “You have been doing well enough with the Primal School,” he addressed Audrie, “but you need practice with the Spirit. You have already shown affinity for the Fade and it’s time you began on practical theory of what I taught you earlier this week.”

Bending down beside the desk, he hauled a burlap sack up and rested it in the chair. It had a horrendous odor of dead sea mussels and pungent fish which had deteriorated to ripe decomposition. “Now, I don’t expect you’ll get this the very first time, but we’ll start with this fellow.” Putting his hand into the bag, he drew out a massive fish which had been caught in lake Calenhad. It was nearly as long as his torso, slender with spiked fins, and had a jaw full of needle teeth half as long as a man’s fingers. It made a natural deterrent for anyone who wasn’t insane or ludicrously determined to swim the lake for an escape.

Flipping the deceased monstrosity out on the table with a grunt, the teacher meandered over to the other side of the room, delicately flaring his thin nostrils. “Go ahead.”

“All right,” Audrie agreed eagerly, and put all her focus into the green and silver striped scales, staring hard at it. For long seconds nothing happened. She bit her upper lip, rubbing her palms together.

She’d almost frozen it with the wrong spell, but saved herself that much embarrassment. Instead, she tried to grasp the deep flowing connection between herself, mana, and the Fade. When she ceased struggling, letting it naturally channel through her, the power thrummed in her gut and flew out of her fingertips. It hit the fish and made it jerk into a half hearted flop. Suddenly realizing what that meant, she hastily began to back up, but ran into a solid, cold wall of armor. “Cullen, you need to back -–”

Her voice was cut off by a muffled boom. Fish guts, scales, skin, and fins exploded like the shower some demented god used in replacement of rain. Glop splattered all over one templar and a crestfallen young mage. “… up….” she finished lamely as she reached up to pick the rim of a fin from where it was dangling from her eyebrow. “Ew,” she sighed and turned around to try and sponge the front of Cullen’s armor off with her sleeve. “Sorry,” she apologized profusely to both of them. “I’m really, really sorry!”

Cullen seemed to be caught somewhere between a tolerance he’d only have possessed due to friendship toward her, annoyance, and absolute disbelief. The instructor on the other hand, folded his arms across his chest, quite satisfied. _That would teach the templars to get too close,_ and took up a bucket, brush, and soap from a corner. Audrie was not the first, nor was she the last, who needed to learn to think ahead when using magic.

“Most apprentices only splatter the walls and ceiling. It appears you will have to help Ser Cormac, isn’t it?” He waved Cullen’s name away impatiently, not recalling it. They were all beginning to look alike to his curmudgeon eyes. “You’ll need to help him clean his armor. Once you have it fit enough for the Knight-Commander’s inspection and the floors tidy again, you can see me about your next lesson.”

“You did that deliberately,” Audrie pouted indignantly, and snatched the proffered bucket. It had been ready for her before she’d even walked in the door.

“Yes,” the elf responded smugly, “next time you’ll think ahead, won’t you, Apprentice? I’ll be having tea in my room when you need me.”

Cullen looked as if he was holding back his gorge as they hastily began to wipe the rotten meat off his face and chest. “I am _so sorry!_ ” she squeaked. “I had no idea I could even do that.” The smell was abominable and soaked into her robes. She could almost taste it in the back of her throat and it was sluicing down into the cracks of Cullen’s armor.

“Please tell me that,” he grimaced and energetically soaped his face, leaning over a basin of water. “That we aren’t having fish for supper?”

“I hope not.” She smiled weakly and helped him get his chest plate off so they could polish it. The rotten fish hadn’t wormed it’s way completely onto the heavy padding below, but the stench was so thick it didn’t matter. “I think I’ll skip it if we do.”

“As will I,” he agreed miserably and glared balefully toward the instructor.


End file.
